This turkey attempted to attack the car shortly after this photo was taken.

By now, on this day before the most gluttonous of all American holidays (Save the Super Bowl) known as Thanksgiving, you have probably seen a fair number of blogs and magazine articles about what wines you should bring to the table. Oddly enough, you’ll probably also notice that no two articles agree on which wines to bring to the table even though they all declare their picks to be the best. Well they’re all wrong…or perhaps all right depending on if you’re a wine glass half-full or half-empty kind of person.

The safest option for you would be to acquire ALL of the wines that have been recommended. However, I understand that some of you have a limited budget and that may not be an option. Even if you could, there’s the issue of finding the wines in the first place. I would hope if you’re reading an article by a local wine expert that they at least listed which shops to find the wines at and how much they’re priced at, but this sadly isn’t always the case. Most will leave you scouring the internet to hunt down these bottles and if you’ve waiting until now to do this, you’re going to be out of luck to get them by tomorrow. The majority of seasonal wine recommendations that are given by actual wine experts are for wines that aren’t distributed to all 50 states. At most, you have a moderate chance at finding them if you’re in a major city. If you’re in the suburbs or beyond, don’t bother hoping your wine shop will carry them.

Given this, what wines should you go buy? First, if you have a wine shop you like to go to, ask the “wine person” there. Regardless of how much of an “expert” this person is, they’re the ones buying the wine for the store you like and they’ve tasted these wines so you can trust their recommendations. If you don’t even have this, just buy some wines that you like to drink and don’t worry too much about how well they pair with the odd assortment of dishes on your table. Even pairings that seem off won’t make you unlike a wine.

For those that want to get a little more technical, here are some base recommendations that you can ask your wine shop about:

If you want to bring out any of those traditional Thanksgiving baking spices, especially clove, go for a red wine that has been aged in oak. The aromatic compound, eugenol comes from toasted oak, and it’s the same compound in clove.

If you want to bring out the butter in your croissants and everything you are slathering with butter, get a Chardonnay that has been through the Malolactic Fermentation (MLF) process.

If your dishes are all carb/fat/savory/make-you-want-to-sleep-forever get a wine with some acid in it (usually from cooler climates) to brighten up your dishes and perhaps bring out their flavor a little more.

If you want a wine with dessert get a sweet wine (bonus points if you follow the baking spices recommendation above too). If the wine isn’t as sweet as the dessert, you’ll notice.

Regardless of what wines you get this Thanksgiving, feel free to make fun of the person that brought their pumpkin-spiced beer.

Every year as the holidays start to roll in, it seems that every wine and/or food related outlet is ready to let you know which wines you should buy in order to have the perfect experience. I always am particularly amused by the interviews with wine “experts” bemoaning how difficult it is to pair wines with a traditional Thanksgiving meal (Revelation: It’s not). It is also interesting to note how the “perfect” wine pairings for various holiday meals changes from year to year. Apparently perfection is now something that can be outdone, which makes me want to start a hyperbolic series listing the More-Perfect wine and food pairings so I won’t be outdone by the likes of everyone else! However, the idea of the perfect wine pairing extends beyond the holidays and into general food and wine snob culture. The question I have for these people purporting perfect pairings is this: Can you define what a perfect pairing is?

Take this infographic for instance by someone at Vinepair.com. I won’t show the image here, because it’s ridiculous, but I could probably switch every single wine/beer/liquor pairing around on their chart and no one would complain. It’s clearly not based on anything except someone’s [unique] preferences. Fortunately, they posted another article shortly thereafter, giving some good advice even though it was supposedly only for “Geeks”. So, sorry casual wine drinkers, you’re going to have to stick to imperfection again this year. (However, here’s another good article that doesn’t appear to be for geeks that may help.)

Whenever someone (expert status or not) claims a match is a perfect pairing and you really press them on why they think it’s perfect, the answer always boils down to: “Well, I liked it.” There isn’t a metric being used that will be universally true for everyone and that’s really the crux of the issue here. Not only do people have their own individual preferences, but the variety of what is being served at various holiday meals should negate the relevenace of any broad holiday wine and food pairing advice. Yes, even Thanksgiving. But I do understand the point of giving this advice; it’s to make it easier for the casual drinker to pick out some wines at the store that they can bring to dinner. However, this is why I find it puzzling that many of these articles list specific wines down to the producer and vintage.

There are a stunning amount of wine producers in the world; so stunning that there is not a single person in the world who has tasted the offerings from them all. If you were to pop in to a different wine store in each state and make a Venn Diagram listing all of the wines each store had, the amount of overlap would actually be quite small. On the severely cheap end is where you find the most commonalities, because the business model of producers like Yellow Tail, Franzia, and Charles Shaw is to mass produce their product. Region-specific wine producers though, by their very nature, can’t produce enough wine to make it available in the majority of wine shops across America (let alone the rest of the world). So while it is great advertising for a wine producer when a wine writer from Napa or New York City annoints them as a perfect pairing for whatever holiday meal, it actually provides little to no value to a reader in Fly-Over Country (Where, surprisingly, most Americans still live) that won’t be able to pick up a bottle of that wine because their wine shop doesn’t carry it.

Therefore, if you’re a wine writer, let’s go ahead and stop the “Perfect Pairing” nonsense. I bet I could find at least 50 other wines that would be just as good to various people. If you’re the wine drinker though and you’re wondering what to bring to dinner this Thursday though, I will offer this:

Buy some wines you like of varying colors, bubbles, and sweetness. The more specific they are on the label about where it comes from, generally the safer the bet. As long as no one shows up halfway through the meal with a selection of wines that everyone unanimously prefers over the ones you brought, yours really will be perfect pairings.

I know you’re probably being inundated with what you should/absolutely/must have for the best/most exciting/most extravagant Thanksgiving this year for wine and food and I promise I will not do that to you. Instead, I’m just going to tell you what I’m going to have. As a bonus, I’m even throwing in the recipes. What?!?!? Aaron is giving us recipes? That’s right. I’m going all mainstream on you. Not just listing the ingredients like I normally do and making you figure it out, but actual recipes that you could follow if you wanted to do that sort of thing.

This year I’ve decided on a South by Southwest theme. No, not the festival in Austin, but southern and southwestern cooking mixed together. My mother grew up in the south, my father in the southwest…so meta. Anyway, as always, if you want advice, send me an e-mail with what you’re having and I’ll help you pick out some wines. Happy early Thanksgiving!

Toast all the spices in a skillet until they are aromatic, then put all of the ingredients in a stock pot and simmer until the salt is dissolved and the fennel has softened a bit (10-15 minutes). Let the brine cool, put your turkey in and cover it for at least 12 hours. Before you’re ready to pop it in the oven, remove from the brine and pat dry. Preheat the oven to 400F Then add the rub.

Mix all ingredients together and rub all of your turkey. Get it mostly under the skin. Yes, your hands will get dirty. You can wash them later.
Pop that bird in the oven at 400F for 30minutes. Hopefully, you have a meat thermometer.
Turn the heat down to 325F and continue to cook for 1 hour.
If you have the time, turn the heat down to 250F and cook until the white meat is 165F or the dark meat is 175F, otherwise just leave it at 325 and your bird will finish up within another hour. If you want to get crazy, go ahead and baste the turkey with the drippings that fall every 1/2 hour or so. Expect your total cooking time to go up a little when you do this though since heat is escaping the oven. On to the sides!

Green Chilies Sauce (Replacement gravy)

2 cans green chilies
½ quart cream
Salt/pepper

Put the first two ingredients in a saucepot and raise to a simmer. Add salt and pepper to taste. Make 10 minutes before you serve all the food. For the advanced user, instead of the canned goods, go ahead and get 4 poblano peppers. Stick them on the grill with the corn until all sides are blistered and blackened. Then slide them into a sealed container or bag for a few minutes so they steam up a bit. Peel off all the skin, then slice and dice. Voilá. Your own chilies.

Trivia for the dinner table: The spelling “Chili” refers to any member of the Capsicum family, many of which are used in cooking. This can also be used to reference the dish which football fans love during the fall. It can also be spelled as “Chile” or “Chilli”. The “correct” spelling is debatable. However, the country of Chile would like to insist everybody spell their name as is. I have seen this embarrassment in grocery stores and wine shops in which they spell the country of Chile, “Chili”.

Hot Sauced Brussel Sprouts

Clean, slice of the stems, and halve the brussel sprouts then toss them with the olive oil. Roast those bad boys at around 350 for 15-20 minutes until the edges get brown. Meanwhile heat up the butter to melting point and mix it with the hot sauce and oregano. Once the sprouts are done roasting, toss them in the hot sauce mixture. Enjoy the ensuing mouth-gasm.

Grilled ears of corn

4 ears of corn
Soak. Pat dry. Grill.

Soak whole ears of corn for 20 minutes in water. Pop on a flaming hot grill. Rotate after you see grill marks on the bottom. Take them off when grill marks are on the other side. 10 minutes-ish to cook.

Wild Rice with cranberries

Put the rice, broth and butter in a pot and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce the heat to low and let cook for 20 minutes. Add the cranberries, sugar, and pecans and some salt if needed. Stir. Cover again and cook for another 30 minutes or until the rice is fluffy and you don’t see liquid bubbling around.

Bring the water, vinegar, sugar, and salt to a boil. Meanwhile stuff your your okra and jalapeno slices into the mason jar. Add in the dill, juniper berries, fennel seeds, and cayenne. Once the liquids are boiling, take them off the heat and pour into the mason jar until the dry ingredients are covered. Seal the mason jar closed and refrigerate for at least a week.